Refrigerating-chamber



{R o Model.)

- A. MYERS.

RB-FBIGERATING CHAMBER. No. 291,074. Patented Jan. 1, 1884.

22% W WM UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

AARON MYERS, or HAMILTON, OHIO.

REFRlGERATlNG-CHAMBER.

SPECIFICATION forming partof Letters Patent No. 291,074, dated Jan'ary 1, 1884 Application filed September 15, 1883.

T0 rtZZ whom, it may concern.-

Be it known that I, AARON MYERS, of Hamilton, Butler county, Ohio, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Refrigcrating-Chambers, of which the following is a specification.

This invention pertains to refrigerators, cooling-houses, refrigerator-cars, 850., and has for its object the more perfect utilization of the cooling properties of ice.

The invention relates to the construction of the ice-crib and its immediate accessories.

If ice be placed, in a crib in a refrigeratingchamber and well salted, the ice will melt, heat be absorbed from the atmosphere, and a cool chamber be produced. If the water resulting from the melting of the ice be allowed at once to escape from the chamber, its power of absorbing heat will have been wasted, and much more ice will thereby be required to produce a given effect. If the water be caught in a vessel while still in the cooling-chamber, with the intention of allowing it to absorb heat from the air and produce a useful cooling effect, the water will freeze up and no good result. In my invention the water from the melted ice is retained for aconsiderable length of time, but freezing is guarded against.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 is a vertical transverse section of a refrigeratorcar, showing my improved ice arrangement arranged in the distant end of the same; and Fig. 2 is a broken perspective view'of the end of the car, exposing the details of the ice arrangement.

In the drawings, A represents the walls of the car; B, the floor of the same,- 0, the roof; D, the icing-door in the roof over the ice-crib; E, the outlet, which may have a trap, if desired, for the water resulting from the melting of the ice; F, aslatted crib-floor, arranged horizontally some distance above the floor of the car; G, a series of leg-like supports, to

which is secured the crib-floorF; H, the front of the ice-crib, reaching from the crib-floor to near the top of the car, and formed of slatted work and wire-cloth; I, a series of metallic shelves or pans, arranged one over the other below the crib-floor, so that water dripping from the crib will fall upon the top shelf, flow downward upon the next shelf, and so on; J, the trough or gutter running lengthwise the (No model.)

ice-crib below the dischargeedge of the lower of the crib to the top of the car, or nearly to the top; L, bolts in the legs G; M, slats lining the front of the crib; N, coarse wire-cloth attached to the front of the crib; 0, protecting-battens on the front of the crib, outside of the wire cloth; P, vertical projections from the legs G above their upper level, to engage the bottom of the removable front, H, of the ice-crib; Q, the upper one of aseries of shelves, having its front edge turned up like a pan, and provided with a rearward slope; R, the second shelf, oppositely disposed beneath the upper shelf, and having less slope; S, T, and U, additional pans arranged similarly to the upperones, sloping alternately in opposite directions, each succeeding one toward the bottom having less slope than its predecessor; and V, the hole through the legs G, support ing the trough J. i

The legs G, with the crib-bottom F, the series of pans or shelves, and the trough J are all united into one rigid structure. It is portable,

and may be taken from the car when desired.-

engaging behind the projections I1, and its up-' per edge secured to the car wall or roof. The shelves or pans are continuous from side to side of the car, but the solid legs G divide them into short shelves or pans. This division of the pans is not essential, but results from the solid form of the legs G. By this method of construction substantiality is given to pans or shelves of very thin material. Ice being thrown into the crib from the top isliable to become broken and splintered. The wire-cloth N prevents the trifling fragments from being thrown out into the car, but at the same time the slats M receive all of the hard blows from the ice. The front slats, O, which need not be so closely placed as the inner slats, M, protect the cloth from damage phere lowered.

walls protect the car-body from being bruised by the ice, and serve to secure free passages for the air between the car-walls and the ice in the crib. Vater from the melting ice drops to the upper pan or shelf, Q, where, in case it becomes stationary an instant, it would freeze. The rapid slant of the upper pan allows this water to drain away rapidly and absorb heat from the atmosphere during its passage, whereby its temperature is slightly increased and the temperature of the atmos- The drip-water then drops to the pan ll, oy'er which it passes at a lessened elocity permissible, on account of the higher temperature of the water after it has reached this pan. The water then reaches pan S and flows slower and warmer to pan T, and thence to pan U, off of which it drains into the discharge-gutter J, from whence it led outside the ear. By thesemeans it is possible to retain the water in the form of water, and utilize its properties as an absorbent of heat in a chamber already cold enough to freeze the water if stationary. The air of the interior of the car has free access to the exterior of the ice-pile and to the surface of the water pans or shelves. An exceedingly low temperature is secured below the ice-crib, and a rapid movement of the air thus attained in its neighborhood, which, of course, resultsin a circulation more or less rapid of the entire body of air within the cooling-chamber. In practice I arrange one of these ice-cribs across each end of the ear, provided, of course, with proper means of ventilation,whereby the air may be purified as well as refrigerated. I am enabled in the warmest summer weather to take a warm ear and reduce its temperature at the rate of over half a degree per minute from the high temperature of summer weather down to near the freezingpoint.

By this system of refrigerator-car construc tion a warm car may be provided with its ice cribs and have its temperature brought down to the loading-point in an hour or so, whereas by the. ordinary construction the proper refrigerating of, a warm car requires from twenty-four to thirty-six. hours.

The method of construction which I have thought best to illustrate in connection with refrigeratingcars is, of course, adapted for use with almost all kinds of refrigeratingchambers. The rear edges of the shelves do not come in contact with the end wall of the car, and space is left for the vertical passage of the air, the intention being that there shall be no dead-air spaces in the neighborhood of this ice-crib.

I claim as my invention-- 1. In a refrigerating-chamber, the combination of an ice-crib with a iloor formed of slats or other open-work, a series of shelves below the ice-crib arranged with decreasing slope, as set forth, and an outlet-pipe arranged to receive the water from the lower pan, substantially as and for the purpose set forth.

2. In a refrigerating-chamber, the combination of an ice-crib with a slatted or other open floor, and a slatted or other open front, and a series of drainingshelves arranged below the ice-crib and open at the front for the free admission of air between the shelves, substantially as and for the purpose set forth.

3. In a refrigerating-ehamber, the combination, substantially as set forth, of an ice-crib with an open-work bottom and front, a series of draining-shelves arranged below the iceerib in such manner that the air may circulate freely over them horizontally and past their edges vertically, substantially as and for the purpose set forth.

t. In a refrigerating-chamber, the combination, with the lloor and walls of the ice-crib having open-work front to the ieecrib formed of interior slats, of a netting of wire-cloth ex-. terior to said slats, sul'istant'ially as and for the purpose set forth.

5. In a refrigerating chamber, the base structure for the ice-crib, consisting of the slatted or open floor F. the legs G, and the shelves I, passing through said legs, combined substantially as and for the purpose set forth.

AAROX MYEPS.

\Vitnesses:

Isniun'. "rLlaAns, Janus \V. SEE. 

